By Alyce Wilson

Who knows more about the twists and turns of the human heart than the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith? And who better to ask for advice when you’re feeling a little lost?

Of course, Bessie was a natural choice, but I didn’t know that when I went to her grave. It wasn’t even my idea. A friend of mine, who regarded Bessie as the inspiration for both his music and his life, did a search online and found out her grave was a short distance from where I was living. Caught in the middle of an ugly divorce, he wanted to make a pilgrimage, and he asked me along. Struggling to figure out what to do with my life, suddenly jobless in a fractured economy, I said sure.

So we set out on a back road, with directions pulled off the Internet. We found the small town easily enough, but then we got lost. My friend started driving by his gut, which made me nervous. I forced him to pull over and ask a postal carrier for directions. It turned out his gut had been right; we were headed in the right direction. Soon we found the quiet little cemetery, turned in and found a parking space.

We walked down tree-lined avenues, his gut pulling us to her simple, yet elegant gravestone. “Help me find you, Bessie,” he asked, and looked straight at the stone.

It was a beautiful, clear day, heavy with the fertile sun of early summer. We found her well-kept grave and the headstone, bought by Janis Joplin, proclaiming her the greatest blues singer. She never would have said that about herself, but I think she would have been pleased. On Memorial Day, somebody had given her a flag.

We’d purchased a bouquet at a roadside stand we’d found by accident, and placed the simple tribute at Bessie’s headstone. We sat down to commune with her. An elegant gray bird with a long tail, like someone wearing an evening dress, flew onto the low branch of a nearby tree.

My friend spoke to Bessie, hoping his words would make it through the grass and the dirt. He told her what she’d meant to him, to his music, what kind of inspiration she’d been.

I just said a blessing for her spirit and sat there enjoying the day.

I’ve always found cemeteries a good place for meditation. My mom and I used to take long bike rides on the country roads to one crowded with old tombstones. We used to like to walk among them, reading the names and wondering who those people had been.

Later, when I was in a nasty living situation, I used to escape in the wee hours of the night to walk amongst the local tombstones, sit by my favorite tree and watch the sun come up. But I’d never felt the kind of joy and peace that I felt at Bessie’s feet. And I didn’t expect the message I would soon receive.

I have to admit, I’m a poor excuse for a blues fan. I’d never even bought any of Bessie’s music until the week of the pilgrimage. But in that week, I’d listened to that pure voice and knew her spirit had lived on in her music.

And as I sat there, it was as if that spirit was filling me up. It was as if a great, peaceful light were shining inside of me. The warmth of the day spilled onto my shoulders, and a voice that sounded like my own and perhaps also like somebody wiser and older, said inside of me, “Stop your worrying. Live, love and sing.”

Maybe it was her. Maybe it was that simple bird. Maybe it was the day. Maybe it was my own internal voice. Maybe it was the wisdom of the universe. There was just something so right about those words.

Even though we’d come close to closing time, in that lazy afternoon, the caretaker stood by quietly, smiling and waiting for us to leave. And when we did, he said, “It’s a great day, isn’t it?” And it was.

Copyright 2001 by Alyce Wilson

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